The Living Shall Praise Thee [Inscribed to Marguerite Young]

London: Victor Gollancz, 1956. First UK Edition. Hardcover (5-1/8 x 7-1/2 in.) in printed yellow dust jacket. Red cloth with lettering stamped in gilt to spine. 286pp. Very Good, corners and spine ends gently pushed, top of text block lightly soiled, spine slightly cocked. Good or better unclipped jacket is toned and damp stained to spine and soiled and lightly edge worn throughout.. Presentation copy and true first edition [UK] of Hauser's fourth novel, published in the United States the following year under the title The Choir Invisible. Warmly inscribed to front free end paper to fellow novelist and close friend, Marguerite Young: "To the one and only Marguerite, and to all the creatures of her incomparable brain and art. With endless love and admiration, Marianne / On the shuttle train between Paris, France and Paris, Missouri - April '57 B.C."


Marianne Hauser (1910-2006) was an Alsatian-American author who, after a period in Paris writing against the encroaching threat of Nazism, ended up fleeing it to New York City, where she became a prominent critic and close associate of many West Village writers such as Marguerite Young, Mari Sandoz, and Anais Nin. Her work drifted away from mainstream publishers over the years, and much remains out of print and under known, although recent efforts to bring her work back into the spotlight have been undertaken by critics towards the goal of eventual republication.


Marguerite Young, best known for her experimental epic novel Miss Macintosh, My Darling, would prove to be one of the closest creative relationships of Hauser's life, with them privately and publicly critiquing and lauding each other's work through extensive correspondence and on the pages of literary reviews. This inscription, dating from a formative time period for both as they worked on their next and best-known and best-regarded works (Miss Macintosh... 1965 and Prince Ishmael 1963), stands as a singularly important piece of association between two close friends and innovators of their craft.